


Skin's Glitter

by Bidawee



Category: Hockey RPF
Genre: Abusive Parents, Alternate Universe - Stripper/Exotic Dancer, Blackmail, Character Development, Disownment, Drug Use, Dubious Consent, Extortion, Internalized Homophobia, M/M, Oral Sex, Pole Dancing, Small Towns, Smoking, Strippers & Strip Clubs
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-12
Updated: 2018-08-12
Packaged: 2019-06-26 13:01:16
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,218
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15663738
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bidawee/pseuds/Bidawee
Summary: “Hey there, little blue-eyed beauty,” he said, loudly enough for other patrons to hear. Mitch shushed him loudly, scrunching up his nose as he tried to make himself look bigger. Anything to deter Auston from saying more.





	Skin's Glitter

**Author's Note:**

> Hasn't been proofed by anyone but myself, so you might find a few errors pepped throughout the story. If there's any big ones, let me know and I'll fix it!
> 
> The more I wrote this, the more I realized I was semi-inspired by the movie Bare. It follows a similar plotline but I did take a few liberties here and there.
> 
> More detailed warnings in the end notes.

Condemning youth to a life of solitude in a small desert town off the coast of New Mexico was almost a fate worse than death. The fly swatters couldn’t do the local bug population justice and if you walked too long outside without sunscreen the telltale red patches would blotch up around the upper back and neck, something aloe leaves couldn’t remedy because of the extent of the burn. The drywall cracked and the rustic, brown earth tones each house owned could only make the desert’s harsh tones more exaggerated.

Air conditioning was a privilege, not a right, and the pools enlightened by string lights were only accessible at richer folks’ homes. Ever stagnant, he lived by the rule of thumb of chugging litres of coke to rich country music and the sound of his father’s guitar, wearing only his boxers to bed because his room fan couldn’t extinguish the sticky heat. His mother had planted pepper seeds in January, intending to spice up their diet with more of the local foods as per recommended by their local church group.

Father wanted him to get a job to pass the time. His brother Chris’ little escapade meant less money was circulating under their roof, and it appeared that every time they broke even something in the house would splinter or need a new coat of paint. Never enough to go around. Because of it, more often than not, his lullabies consisted of his parents shrieking at each other at the top of their lungs, and so he’d crawl out of his bedroom window and sit on the porch to contemplate.

He’d had a couple sweethearts and done well enough in school. But there was no future in a town, especially one where the teenagers outnumbered the elderly folk, and there weren’t enough part-time positions to go around. Survival of the fittest, some Charles Darwin spinoff that the church choirs wouldn’t acknowledge.

In the new year, he cropped his hair back and started tearing out his old outfits, shirts he’d kept since puberty that he’d long since grown out of. The ones in best conditions became the shirts he used to wash the car with, the rags given to a support group at the local food bank that clothed low-income families that couldn’t afford a monthly trip to the bargain store. He scalped out his room, made a little home in his bedroom closet, and tried not to think too hard.

A hustle and bustle started when an investor bought out the old diner, and to add insult to injury, tore out the menu boards and tables to build a strip club, citing the younger population as a good source of income. When conservative adults weren’t honking at the construction workers in protest, they were boycotting the fundraisers and dragging their daughters behind closed doors to threaten them into abstinence. Still, by June at the club’s grand opening to tens of people, there was a good number of women mounting the poles, thriving under the mockery of nightlife spurned by the laser diode lining the walls with neon pink stripes.

He’d been hanging out with friends one evening, using a vintage rover to run over the rocky terrain and try to get air, when someone suggested they swing by. He’d literally been sitting in the headlights, spearing a beetle with a makeshift wooden spear, and couldn’t conceal his surprise at the idea. The others nodded along, pack mentality definitely helping, and so they crammed into the too-small car and bolted off in the direction of the new asphalt parking lot that circled the club like a moat.

Inside was like a new planet, so despondent from modern-day trends. The venue made his eyes sting as his pupils worked to adjust from pitch-black darkness to strobe lights and bombastic techno music that wasn’t the everyday country and folk his parents insisted on playing lest anything too sinful, as they called it, aired on the radio. Swears were salted into every lyric, overwhelming painting how sensual the beat was and how it got the ladies on stage grinding.

Some of the girls were soliciting drinks, using trays to shakily balance the alcoholic concoctions ordered by the older men spending their pennies and dimes for such depraved entertainment. Although many of the girls were easy to size up, their faces were guarded with streaks of bright eyeshadow bringing out the feathered outfits and ripped fishnet stockings.

The main act was more a routine ten minutes on, twenty minutes off of dancers taking their place on stage with a song of their choice and trying to give an intimate spectacle with their props and too-strong fragrances that made his eyes well up with tears. Once or twice, they eyed him as they walked past, flashing their heels, but his eyes were drawn to the tips they were gifted with, so nakedly tossed onto the platform to later be collected.

His friends had wanted to tour the club’s facilities using their general admission, but besides from the secretive premium lounges, it was what it said on the tin. The striptease show was the main attraction and everything else was background noise. Ironically, it was what he cared least about. The ambience of the club, with ten-minute work shifts raking in good money, was something he’d admit he’d lust for.

Before they’d left, he slinked over to the bartender and asked to see management, seeing an answer to his problems behind the lucrative front. In a world so deprived of energy and promiscuity, he didn’t want to let go of the newfound opportunity.

No bartender positions were open, was the reply he got, but he guessed his inexperience played a big part in it too. He wasn’t about to walk home with his tail in between his legs, piped up about the position of a stripper after one had walked by and almost stabbed through his foot with her high-inch heels. They’d laughed in his face at the thought; in such a conservative town bordering on Bible belt territory, to think of a male stripper was preposterous, but he’d worked on them. The ladies would want a reason to stop by, and if a man or two looked at his corner of the stage in the dead of the club, face obscured by the strobe lights, then that would only serve to benefit them.

Stone-cold, they’d pushed back, bantering back and forth with him. Their eyes inspected his gangly limbs, the way the fat had dripped off and left muscle behind, but not enough to be considered a bodybuilder or one of the town’s numerous mechanics. There was some give, something feminine about how he could twist and bat his eyelashes, and that was the final witness to his new employment opportunity. He’d signed off on the few papers shoved under his nose and been sent on his way, to uses the shade from the palm trees and cacti as cover from familiar faces.

There’d never been any indication that he’d take on a job as a dancer, so his inexperience was lacklustre at best. At home, he’d mounted a steel pole from the backyard up against the shed and practised using internet videos hand-picked on an incognito browser. His time was limited, and he could only dance when the family was out. His parents worked night and day shifts, his brother at the fast food joint down the road who’d come home on the weekends and rustle his hair. Under twilight’s streaking colours, he hooked his legs around the steel, hoisted himself up, and pushed himself flat, testing the limits of his balance and endurance.

Reinvigorated, he scoured the internet again for a good name but found himself cringing at some of the entries. The ladies at the strip club, from what he’d seen, were at least grounded in reality with names strange, but also a title they wore with pride. Sites told him to pick something about himself he liked that was noticeable, but not individualistic. After a morning wiping his hand through the steam on the bathroom mirror post-shower, he decided on Blue Eyes.

The first night wasn’t the worst, by far. They’d splashed glitter on his cheeks, passed him cannabis and a candy bag of secretive drugs to keep him high, and then shoved him out in a lucrative outfit to be admired by many. In the back, many were left enamoured with Andromeda’s performance, practically gyrating on stage to the applause of one dollar bills.

Almost no one looked at him. Word hadn’t made him talk of the town yet, so the stragglers from Andromeda and Chastity were all that was left for him to be entertained by. He tripped over himself a few times and doesn’t perfect his spins; by no means a perfect run. He made pocket change regardless, probably because they pitied him. He had his distinctiveness, and nothing else.

Six hundred on a good week, nothing more.

The girls slapped him on the ass when he returns back to the changing room and made him chug cocktails and vodka shots until he was throwing up on the restroom toilet at two in the morning. He didn’t consider them friends anyway.

When it became clear there’s a boy stripping at the club, a new onslaught of visitors come by. Mainly women, who pay him the tail ends of their paychecks for a lap dance, but never the private rooms. They giggle and jeer from their selective cliques, gabbering for his attention whenever he passes by them to collect his earnings. Always pitiful, considering his ass was coming dangerously close to doing a full split on the pole, but enough. Enough to pay the rent and electricity for one more night so that he wouldn’t have to hear his parents bicker.

It also brings a new crowd of immature high schoolers posing as adults and old perverts wanting to get a taste of young blood. The former buy him as a joke, degrade him and tug his hair until his neck is bared and try to put out cigarettes on his skin for five dollars. The old ones run their wrinkled hands up his legs and try to look as snip and span as possible when they were paying for his attention in the secretive bars of the private rooms. It’s disgusting, he hates it, but they turn out to pay the most, so he lets them vy and shriek, picking up the bills later with a little bow that makes them wolf whistle.

Local boys were the rarer specimen, but he saw them. He didn’t like them, because the girls  trained on his toned legs and arms and the older customers were out of his age range, but the boys were people he’d crossed paths with in high school. They weren’t looking at the body, they were looking at the face, and he’d been told he’s an open book.

His mother was dutifully impressed with his earnings, asking if he’d been promoted or gotten a raise at the shop. It was easier to say yes and move on, even as he donned his room in little trinkets and squeezed by on treating himself every so often at the ice cream shop or antique store.

One particular night, he was putting on a good routine. He had a few regulars that come in on Fridays before the weekend to get their fix, tip him off, and return to their families. There was more bustle than usual, partially because it was the weekend but also because the drive-in theatre was doing repairs after a windstorm blew a hole in the facilities. More vagrants had clustered around the bar to admire a suspiciously young server while the others that weren’t attached to Mitch’s hips favoured the women parading themselves around the pole.

He was making his rounds, stepping around the bills, picking them up with less frequency than normal when a hand snatched him by his suspenders and pulled him back. He was quick to chastise the customer; they can’t just force him around and if they wanted to, they’d have to pay extra. Upon further inspection, he was looking into the eyes of former classmate Auston Matthews.

If anyone could be labelled a desert native, it was him. This was the same guy that had five jumping cactus nailing into his shoulder meat and came to school the next day. They weren’t friends, they’d done a group project together in English about Othello and that was it, but they’d locked eyes enough to know each other, and the first thing he saw reflected in those eyes was Mitch Marner.

“Hey Mitchy,” Auston said, low enough that only they could share it. Mitch stuttered out a weak correction to his stripper name and backed up on his hands and feet, trying to put distance between them. It felt like he’d plunged into arctic waters, the panic eating away at him paralleling that of a maggot-infested apple.

“Don’t tell,” he pleaded, a shiver racing down his spine when Auston smirked in response.

Soon after, he disappeared behind the curtains, leaving behind the few bills he hadn’t had the courage to retrieve. The glitter on his face and the contouring makeup meant he couldn’t soak his face in cold water, but he slurped a good amount from a random glass on the vanity set to stabilize himself. Later, he went back, noticing the money was gone and swore under his breath.

Auston hadn’t left through, instead, playing into Mitch’s suspicions. One of the ladies had led Auston backstage for a secondary performance when they met again, this time with an awkwardness poking inside at his intestines. Mitch turned around to stare down at column, briefly interrupted by Auston stuffing a few dollar bills down his crotch as Mitch worked to pointedly overlook his presence. The ladies snickered away behind him, pointing out how he was as red as rose.

It wasn’t a one-night thing either, Auston returned on odd days to ogle and chime in respective insults for the heck of it. There wasn’t much to do while the movies were being repaired, so Mitch figured Auston was putting up with a few laughs while he waited for some new occupation to take precedence. But he kept coming back again and again, until he became one of the regulars nodding along to the beat of the music.

He asked one night for a private dance, to which Mitch wasn’t inclined to agree with should it surpass his comfort needs. He knew Auston worked part-time at the auto shop and probably couldn’t afford it, but upon overhearing he had a younger customer he was ushered in regardless, past the bodyguard who leered at Auston with a sick sense of recognition.

The room was more constraining than usual, the dim lighting and neon signage combined with the weight of Auston’s presence making it an airtight trap he couldn’t squirm out from. He sat Auston down on the plush booth, tried to make himself comfortable and not take notice of the bulge at the front of his customer’s pants, and got to work doing his normal routine.

Hands stroked up and down his thighs repeatedly, working a good rhythm up as Mitch became more frantic to get the dance over with. The music was slowed down by a couple hundred decibels, or so it seemed. It lasted forever, and when it was done, Auston slinked out without paying, leaving him to forward the cost of the private room’s bill by himself and set him back enough to have to make up another excuse to feed to his parents.

Granted, he was much colder to Auston after that, but the man didn’t engage him as much as he did before and became more of a wallflower. He didn’t toss money at Mitch and counted his bills at the bar counter like he was some millionaire at a charity auction. Mitch rolled his eyes, patted his cheeks with glitter and his chin with foundation, and got back to doing what he did best, dancing.

All the while, he evaded his parents prodding about him fixing their beat down car for them, because he _had_ to work at the auto shop to be making so much on the daily. He didn’t have the heart to talk them down from it, but also wasn’t going to blow his cover over something as stupid as a car. He took it in for them, paid off a worker, and sat in the shade with a slushie as he waited for them to fix the engine he’d take credit for later.

A dirtied rag was later tossed in his direction minutes after he sat down, slapping his thigh and leaving an oil stain on the knee. When he looked up from the razzberry blitz in his right hand, he saw Auston approach with a lecherous grin spread out on his face.

“Hey there, little blue-eyed beauty,” he said, loudly enough for other patrons to hear. Mitch shushed him loudly, scrunching up his nose as he tried to make himself look bigger. Anything to deter Auston from saying more.

He’d only just got the confidence back to start wearing shorts after he realized he once wore the black mini shorts he’d used to strip in public, all while knowing they showed off his legs and the birthmark behind the knee that was more than incriminating. This was but another setback making him fear for life as he knew it, and that’s what terrified him the most.

“What’s your damage?” he yelled back, trying to make it look like a spat between two friends and not something private. The mechanics working on his parent’s car forwarded them a look, but returned back to their word when they realized no fist fight would be taking place.

Auston held his hands up. “Calm down little spitfire,” he said. “I just wanted to ask a favour of you. See how you were doing.”

Mitch spat the straw out of his mouth, pressing his tongue to the roof of his mouth to forego brain freeze. “I’m fine,” he snarled. “And I’m not doing anything for you.”

“Not even if I paid you?” Auston replied, flashing a fifty-dollar bill at him like that’d make a difference. Mitch huffed out a breath of air so finite it made his bangs fly up, furthered by the dusty breeze swaying between them that took the desert wildlife tumbling with it.

“Never. Now go away.”

“I thought dancers were supposed to like getting commission payments. It’s an easy gig, to make up for last time.” It didn’t reel his attention in, Mitch was far more consumed with sucking down the blue slushie than he was ever trying to please Auston.

When he didn’t get a reply, Auston crouched down in front of him and pulled the slushie away, inching in close until their lips were close enough to touch. “Come over to my place tonight, I know you’re off 'til ten. I want something a little more private.”

“And if I refuse?” Mitch couldn’t help but say. Auston’s breath smelled like peppermint, almost a bit too brash, even for him. The increasingly hard to ignore smell made him want to gag.

“Then you don’t get paid, simple as that.”

“I’m not taking fifty,” Mitch mumbled around the straw, chewing at the end to give his mouth something to do. Auston watched on, still too close for comfort.

“Hundred-and-fifty. One hour, tops. I bet you don’t get much out here.”

“Two hundred,” Mitch haggled, for the sake of it. Auston bit the bullet and held out his hand.

“I should be saving up for the move, but whatever, it’s a deal.” He stood back to his full height, retrieving one of the promotional brochures on the convenience store window and opening up the fine paper until he found a patch of white space to scribble his address down on. When Mitch started up the engine and made to drive away, he could see Auston had taken the liberty of giving his phone number too, the vile numbers stinking of chemicals from the sharpie and so much more that it made him want to heave. He tore out the section and started home, ignoring that he was a couple hundred bucks poorer because he didn’t want to tell his parents that he didn’t fix cars for a living.

He turned up on Thursday evening swinging his shoes between his hands and knocking on the screen door until it peeled away and revealed Auston. He looked oddly dressed up for someone hiring a stripper, but Mitch wasn’t one to judge. Like a lost sheep, he followed Auston through the squeeze of a house, up to his bedroom and locked the door behind them on Auston’s command.

Following Auston’s directions, he posed and preened, let Auston card through his hair and seat him down on the bed to be admired like a collector's edition doll. When it came for the actual dance, Auston persisted with having no audio to fill the void of background sound effects, opting for the full natural experience.

In truth, it made dancing on him ten times more awkward, because he had to be plagued with his self-deprecating thoughts alongside the touch from Auston’s hands illegally skirting up his waist. Being in his room, with the childhood trinkets and personalized items stacking up to the walls, was torture. 

Auston pulled him flat to his crotch around the five-minute mark, locking his arms around Mitch’s waist and sealing them together. A lot of Mitch's tricks were self-taught using online articles and skeevy videos from dark corners of the web, so being put into a new position compromised a lot of the movements he tried to clond. By the end, it was a sad replication of frottage and nothing Mitch’s professional mindset could cook up was able to stop the physicality from turning him on.

“Blow me,” Auston said out of the blue, grinding Mitch to a halt as Auston's fingernails pierced the skin and carved in deep.

“I don’t do sexual favours,” Mitch said through gritted teeth, trying to pry the nails off. When he removed one hand and went to attend to the other, Auston simply reapplied it, trapping Mitch on his lap with both thighs spreading himself open for the other man’s delight.

“You will now,” he said. “I paid you.” The brattiness shone through in his tone, almost deafening in the quiet of the bedchamber.

“It’s against our policy.” The words left his mouth with practised ease, channelled through the many clients that got a bit too touchy.

“You’re not at the club though,” Auston pointed out. “I’ll toss in an extra fifteen, if that changes your mind. I know you’re not any better off than I am.”

“You don’t have the money.” He fought back with tooth and nail, trying to preserve his pride.

Auston glowered at him, mouthing at his neck. “I’ve been saving up, waiting for you. I’ll pay you beforehand if it'll change your mind.”

Mitch was a certified virgin, hadn’t seen another guy’s dick in a sexual light ever. His father would crucify him for just seeing a girl; Mitch didn’t want to conjure up images of a same-sex relationship and his father's reaction to it. Money was tight though, his dignity already sold to the highest bidder. He had no more to lose. He's doing this on his terms. He _wanted_  this and he was going to rob Auston blind for it.

Unzipping the fly, he tried to produce more saliva to hopefully make the initial drag easier, but still felt his mouth dry up when Auston pulled himself out from his boxers, only half-hard. Forced by circumstances to perform, he used every porn technique ever placed into his hands. The obtrusive, disgusting smacks of skin and moisture slicking their skin made him want to bury himself six feet under. Not to mention, the heat of the man’s cock and how it twitched as if alive.

Using Mitch’s mouth, Auston worked to make him as uncomfortable as possible. The veins of Auston's cock were branding themselves into his gums and swelling enough to lock Mitch in place, unnecessary, seeing as how Auston had grabbed his hair and pulled him taut until Mitch’s nose was curtained by his pubes. Right before he blew off, he forced Mitch to back off and let the come splatter on his face, some landing on his tongue and swallows down instinctually. It burned in his stomach like hot copper.

The aftertaste was the worst part, because it was something that followed him out of the residence with the bills in hand. Somehow, he knew it wouldn’t be the last encounter; Auston was insatiable. In the spotlight of his stage hours later, Mitch could see him stalking his recital, detailing how his crotch ground against the unforgiving cold of the pole until the friction made his pants tent. There was no denying Auston was into men, but that was a secret Mitch would take to the grave.

True to his word, Auston paid him on time from that day forward, but became more sophisticated in his demands. They’d wait until the bodyguard and bouncers were scouting the halls before Auston’s hands would palm Mitch’s cock from outside his shorts, then stroking him to full hardness which he’d have to will down before his next performance. After that, the girls and old men became secondary; Auston took priority.

One night, he left the club with a bite mark around his nipple. When his family joined the neighbours for a weekly barbeque, he couldn’t go swimming and had to leave his shirt on. While his brother and family friends splashed in the cold relief of the pool, he was lounging on a chair rethinking his life choices around a bite of hamburger (stupid it may be, but he felt sick even looking at a hot dog, because the jokes Chris had made had his stomach turning with Auston’s groin in mind).

If Auston got booted from the club, then his secret was out. So he had to comply with the ridiculous demands and hold his head high, knowing he was the equivalent of a street whore. He had a few more close calls buying groceries and walking around town, when people would give him a second look because something about him they’d seen before. When he performed on stage, he made a greater effort to toss his hair, conceal the grooves on his face with crude makeup, and wear a few more layers of clothes to add to his suspenders and shorts to hide his body.

All of it was short-term, stupid precautions he put forth to look better than he actually was. To pretend that after a late night working and sitting in drug circles with the ladies he wasn’t pushed up against the brick of the club outside with Auston's lips smacking his skin and pulling MItch's bowtie with his teeth until it fell off. It always ended with Mitch hiking up his thighs to protect his crotch from the extra stimulation.

But, as it turned out, Auston wasn’t the whistleblower. Auston paid when he had to and kept food on the family table when Mitch’s parents got fewer hours in the week and it chopped up their paychecks. However, as his wily paydays became more frequent, he got a bit more careless and took risks that he wouldn’t on a regular day. In what he assumed was some makeshift bachelorette party because of the flashy jewellery, he got too close to one of the women and only realized he was staring his ex down the face.

They’d ended on a bitter argument over something stupid, and he’d regret his actions when she squealed, and leaned back, immediately muttered harshly to her friends who responded in similar ilk. He retired from the dance early, but the damage was done. When word got around that Blue Eyes was Mitch Marner, no one could look him in the face without reddened visibly or laughing him down.

Someone ratted on him, because he came home to see his father flipping over plates, turning on him in an instant and demanding he get out. Mitch was the talk of the town, the one male stripper unmasked and revealed to be a random townie that was the son of a local businessman with more grudges than an evangelical preacher. Finally, people had things to throw back in his face when he got too pissy with customers, and Mitch knew his father liked to be seated both in high-acclaim as per his standing in the town and also be at the right hand of the father. There was a reason he was dragged to church every Sunday, wherein the holy water freckled on him burned into the pores of his skin with the sins he’d committed.

Mitch was sobbing into the bedsheets after, some form of holy retribution used as an excuse for his father to smack him around before he angrily cried out that no son of his would be living in the household when he worked as a part-time stripper. Mitch was only able to soften the blow by downing a few dozen beers in the basement mini-fridge as he packed up his belongings, stuffing them into his beat-down car’s trunk and driving off in a smoggy dust cloud that he hoped choked his father out.

The local motel was by no means the Ritz, what with the collapsing ceiling and albino snakes slithering outside his dirt-congealed ventilation system. The few boxes he’d transported out from his bedroom were left to collect dust in the corner by the shabby desk and lawnchair set-up they’d given him. Microwavable noodles and hot pockets took over as his diet plan because he didn’t have a stove to cook with nor a sink outside of the bathroom to use for boiling.

He took up smoking as a habit to deal with the emotional toll of forking over his money to live in a crappy dump. The nicotine had its way of seducing him to sleep in a way the alcohol didn’t. When he wasn’t being sentimental about the way the puffs of smoke dallied around the tips of his fingers, he was watching the neighbours scoop leaves and foliage out of their backyard pool with large, almost imposing nets. After the cleaning, the kids would cannonball in, overwrought with joy about there being something else to do with their spare time that wasn’t soaking countless hours into television.

Without family, there was even less to do, and less to help take his mind off of his occupation. There were no family barbeques with neighbours grilling chicken burgers and shish kabobs for a group of over twenty patrons. No family trips to the sole grocery store anchoring the town or morning expressos chastely sipped among them. No one to split gas money with or vent to after a particularly rough night where his thighs were shaking because he’d held himself up on his knees for too long.

He was safeguarded behind the chandelier of lights hanging from the ceiling because the few that didn’t know could sit close and pretend he was someone else putting on a show for them. If he tried to rationalize his little pity party, it meant he didn’t have to dress up as much on stage. He was good just putting on a skimpy playboy outfit and letting the beat serenade him.  

Some of the patrons got more aggressive with their manhandling. He’d had to throw a few people out because they were getting vulgar with him, poking at his weak spots because they knew he was cornered. It made for a few awkward encounters outside, because now that everyone knew it gave them a license to herald him and hurl insults when he was simply browsing the aisles at the department store for sink cleaner.

On the opposite end of the spectrum, some people, besides his family, cut off communications entirely. Auston was one of them. Make no mistake, Auston still visited the club, but appeared more interested in the other acts. He’d lost his blackmail material and had nothing to hold over Mitch’s head, so he probably figured it was best he keep his distance. 

At least, that appeared the case, at least, until a Sunday evening, when Mitch had finished his routine on the pole and Auston intercepted him before he disappeared behind the velvet curtain to freedom.

“Mitchy,” he started. “I’m sorry. I heard. It wasn’t me.” He tried to placate Mitch with a hand on the arm, but the heat flash that followed suit made him flinch.

“Just leave me alone,” Mitch replied. He was craving a cigarette to twirl among his fingers for the sake of a distraction. But leaving wasn’t an option until Auston wanted it as such, and a hand clamped down on his shoulder and wrenched him back.

Auston was hyper-focused on Mitch’s lips, no longer consumed by the grating heteronormality he’d had to pertain to. The eyes that were probably trained on the both of them and what would follow after. “One more time,” he pleaded. The thumbprint grooves kneaded the skin, agitating the sunburn dwelling underneath the light clothes,

“In case you haven’t noticed,” Mitch paced his words out carefully, “I’m in a bit of a terrible situation right now. So you can take your fake demands and shove them right up your ass.” Auston blanked, words lost on him in the spectre of details now made abundantly clear.

Mitch took advantage of his surprise to reclaim his shoulder and hide behind the dressing booths for the dancers in view of the bodyguard, who he’d come to be friends with over the span of a few weeks due to the climb in incidents and false customers. It’d got to the point where the club manager, a hard-ass, steel-lipped guy with a scruffy appearance to add to the harsh baritone of his voice, was showing him some compassion. He didn’t charge Mitch for the back rooms unless the customer paid, and enforced stricter guidelines for who could come in and out after someone roughed Mitch up so badly they left his nose bleeding for half an hour.

Even the club ladies took him under their wing, sharing their rounds of drugs they’d been sticking up their nose as a bit of a peace offering. He wasn’t a heavy user, not when there was so little to go around in the first place but for the sake of it, he indulged himself. Let his hair down and jammed out to the indie rock playing over the radio speakers and let the girls throw flashy boas on him as they celebrated their own slice of heaven confined in the walls of the strip club.

After a long night, his feet were sore in his sneakers and he could feel blisters come along on his heel, rubbing the skin raw. Chris’ friends had begun to vandalize his car when they saw it in the parking lot because of the club’s close vicinity to their hangout spot beside the abandoned post office, so he decided walking was the better alternative. When the telltale sound of a rickety old car pulled up beside him, he kept walking and hoped he wouldn’t be another human trafficking victim to add to the number count.

The driver rolled his window down, oblivious to the fact he was half-way in a ditch and also pulled over on the wrong side of the road.

“Get in,” the voice cawed, and Mitch tried to shrug it off and keep walking on, having some reassurance in knowing it wasn’t an estranged member of his family and simply a very persistent and very annoying customer. Auston wasn’t one to take no for an answer though, and hit the gas until the hood of his car nudged Mitch’s ass.

“Mitch, get in,” Auston said again. “You shouldn’t be out by yourself this late.”

“I’m not a damsel,” Mitch replied, some of his words slurring as he tried to work out what was up, what was down. “Go away, I don’t need your help.” He was thoroughly tempted to throw his knapsack at the windshield, but the cash inside was worth more than ever before.

“I know, so get in. We’re ditching the quarry, you and me,” Auston yelled, over the faint lyrical adaptation of a sixteen-year-old’s first time seeing a woman naked, compiled into some shrieking country hymn. It didn’t do much to help the situation.

“How many times do I have to say no for you to get the point?” Cars were honking at them from the road, dangerously close to hitting Auston’s vehicle and causing substantial damage.

Auston’s reply was to kick open the door and stomp out after Mitch, splitting through the desert foliage and shrubbery to get to his intended target. That time, he didn’t try to subdue his grip, and physically moved Mitch around to face him.

“Mitch, come on.” It wasn’t a question. He had the upper body strength to lift him and kidnap Mitch before the bubbles settled. It wouldn’t be a missing person’s case, because no one would miss him. It should have sobered him up more than it did. “Let’s blow this town. I’ve wanted out for a long time. Come with me. Let’s be drifters.”

Mitch’s eyebrow quirked, the cruel gesture only another pitfall signalling how far from grace he’d fallen that he’d laugh down such a generous request. “Is that why you’re so plainly shacking up with guys now? Matthews ain’t got no shame. Taking a whore with him.”

Arms snaked up around his shoulder blades and took him by surprise with a genuine hug. The crook between his neck and his shoulder was replaced by Auston’s jawline, wherein the gruff panting and sickeningly damp exhales scorned the skin and had him sweating like a sinner in church. The other joined Mitch’s scalp, petting the parting of the hair and combing through the products put in to keep his natural volume something to be admired.

“You need to calm down,” he said plainly. “You’re pretty Mitch. Real pretty. I know you like what you see. You can stay here with your family, let them run laps around you, or come with me and start over. Only I’ll know.”

Mitch’s head wasn’t clear from the drugs yet, the psychedelic colours and mishmash of shapes defining Auston’s body too obtrusive in his line of sight. He needed to step away and really think, put some definition into what he saw for a change instead of acting impulsively and getting himself into trouble. But it didn’t make much of a difference to Auston, who continued regardless.

“You’re not one to start being picky Mitchy. Got too many debts to count, I know it. Why else would you dance for strangers? You should be leaping over me at the chance to try something new for once, get away from this town and their psychotic little mind-games.”

“I don’t want to talk about it,” Mitch said. Auston’s hugging increased in strength, until it was becoming physically hard to suck down air.

“What, don’t want to start shit? You’d give just about any conversation the shaft to get out of trouble. Probably what makes you such a good stripper.” The hands lowered down, teasing the cleft of his ass. “Probably makes you an even better fuck.” Mitch tried to shimmy out, wriggling his shoulders but only further feeling the press of the other warm body against his as Auston fought to keep him.

“Fuck you,” he said, dangerously close to crying and sending his mascara running, looking more and more like a movie cliche.

Auston did let go after, but replaced the shallow touches on his ass with new ones around Mitch’s lips and chin, circling his neck primed and ready to choke. “You’re a good little boy that wouldn’t run away unless I paid you. So let me pay you.”

“N-No,” Mitch tried to shake his head and get out. “No, I’m not a prostitute. Get off.”

“Shame, you’re really pretty.” Auston’s teeth dangled dangerously close to his ear. “You have to know that with your secret out, it’s only going to get worse. This is your get out of jail card, so use it.”

The colour was rapidly draining out from his face, mainly because the offer wasn’t unlike anything else Auston had put forth. He was seriously considering it, and that hurt him, like swallowing a plastic bag full of needles.

Auston appeared to realize he was slipping, nipped around his lobe a few times and then pressed his lips to Mitch’s forehead in an act too affectionate to befit his large, stupidly imposing face.

“Come with me,” Auston said, one last time. “If not that, then let me drive you home. Give you a little taste, since I know you’ll be coming back.”

“I’m at a motel,” Mitch bit out. His teeth scarred the surface of the lip, begging to have something substantial to dig into and tear apart. “It’s just down the road.” Less than a minute, really. He could’ve finished the wall without stumbling onto vagrants or getting shot in the back of the head, but Auston still insisted on driving him the few metres and parking close to his room.

Mitch didn’t allow him to see the inside, not because of the invasion of privacy, but because of how sad it was. What a once dignified, regular boy was reduced to. Despite it, the effect was still instantaneous. Auston had no more words to share with him, but stroked a hand up his thigh before he left in the form of a quiet alliance.

On Friday afternoon, Auston parked his car outside again. He threw fast food wrappers at the window until Mitch folded and opened the door, met with a hot gust of desert air seeping in the entrance. Outside, the pale, sandy-coloured landscape was juxtaposed by blue skies, with clouds big enough to swallow up the sun but not overpower it. He swore a few tumbleweeds were rolling about.

He’d made up his mind, debating his options late into the morning and doing so without a second opinion stopping him from doing the wrong thing. All he could think about was getting out of the town, whether it was worth taking the leap or waiting to build up a larger sum of cash for savings and then hitchhiking the distance to the ocean. He’d always wanted to see the ocean, put his feet in the tide and swirling seafoam and walk the gravel floor until fish bite at his toes. That, to him, was a certain kind of freedom.

Wordlessly, they worked together to shovel his many boxes full of belongings into the trunk, stopped by the local gas station for peanut butter cups and a refill on gasoline, and set out on the lonely desert highway, almost empty wallets joining hands in the backseat.

 

**Author's Note:**

> A character turns to stripping in lieu of getting a part time job. His identity is found out by a customer who tries to blackmail him into performing for him. This character makes clear that he will **not** divulge this information to the public and is playing. He has sex for money but at any point can refuse/leave--proceeding to prove a point. The main character is found out for stripping and kicked out of his home by his family.
> 
> come talk with me @cursivecherrypicking on tumblr!!  
> disclaimer i've done online research to back most of the stuff up but i dont have irl experience so it may be a bit airy compared to reality.
> 
> fun fact i wrote this in twenty four hours. started last night around one in the morning, finished today at five.


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